Lunch at Otto's

David is grumbling, claiming he’s being coerced into drinking beer in an empty pub (albeit one of London’s loveliest, an art deco gem like few others). “No cocktails!?” he exclaims in typical soaring tone.

From our vantage point, behind pints of Timothy Taylor Landlord, in The Duke on Roger St in Bloomsbury, we can almost see over into Otto’s French Restaurant.

Michael and I have dined at Otto’s before, we know the score, but this is David’s maiden voyage. We’ve presented it, now that Le Gavroche has closed down, as the raffish half-blood heir to the crown of London’s finest classical French restaurant. Knowing David, I think he’s expecting something slightly grander and more patrician, when we cross the street and approach 182 Gray’s Inn Road.

Otto’s sits on an ordinary stretch of road. Its black and red façade offers a mild nod perhaps, to owner Otto Tepasse’s time working at Stringfellows in the 1980s. The restaurant’s frontage is diminutive and sandwiched between a dry-cleaner’s and a Japanese takeaway. As we arrive, David is looking more and more incredulous, wondering if we’re having him on.

The interior only goes some way to assuaging his fears. Otto’s dining room looks a bit like Uncle Monty’s drawing room in Withnail and I, had it benefitted from a re-design by a drunk, Francophile Truman Capote. The walls are a deep shade of teal, while the banquettes are crimson. Large silk cushions with prints of Marilyn Munroe and The Beatles are scattered around the room and the tables are set with sparkling silver. More silver flanks the room in the form of Otto’s magnificent presses, which I will come on to.

Co-owner, Otto Tepasse, is quite the character.  I’ve dined here many times and Otto’s presence is certainly part of the magic. On an early visit, I remember sharing a glass of 18^th century Madeira with him while he poured flaming cognac from the restaurant’s well-worn Viking helmet. Those days are now long-gone; an extraordinary thirst for Champagne purportedly left him reeling. He’s teetotal now, but loves the smell of wine and takes the time to open and decant with care, muslin cloth and a flickering candle.

Otto spent the much of the 1970s and 1980s roving around Europe, training with some of the greats of gastronomy. He honed his craft with spells at Maxim’s and La Tour d’Argent in Paris, Mirabelle in London, and notably Stringfellow’s at one point!  Every stage added to the patina of his experience, which is part of what places Otto’s in a sphere of its own in London today.

Otto is in place today, alongside business partner Elin Hansen. He’s lost his voice, and looks a little weary, but acts as the consummate professional circling the dining room with balletic grace.  

The aforementioned duck and lobster presses loom behind us: mountains of silver glinting in the soft afternoon light. Otto mentions that the lobster press is one of the first ever made; he understands that it was created for the 1900 Paris Exposition. I’ll wager there’s nowhere on the planet where a solid silver Christofle lobster press sits next to a dry-cleaning company, as Deliveroo drivers wing past.  

We start with carefully assembled Champagne cocktails, while working out our strategy. We haven’t pre-ordered, so the pressed lobster, duck and most devastatingly, David notes, the “combined pigeon and lobster menu” are out of bounds today.

In truth though, this is no great worry. Cocktails dispatched, we sip a superb 2020 Montagny from Philippe Colin, and order copiously. The strategy is one of conviviality and sharing, multiple small courses with vinous accompaniments various. Orkney scallops are poached in a delicate beurre blanc in their pastry-encrusted shells. Deep-fried calf brains pit deep-brown crisp exterior against melting off-white insides and is served with a textbook sauce Grenobloise. The brains disappear very quicky. Salad Royale looks to be Otto’s interpretation of a discerning, drunken glutton’s late-night fridge dash. Crisp Bayonne ham, roast scallops, smoked duck and a fat lobe of foie gras. There’s also a small mound of beans, but if one’s to be critical calling this a salad is a tad far-fetched.

Rather than jumping straight into main courses, Michael sagely suggests we glide into a mid-course treat. The steak tartare here is of legend. Jay Rayner remarked that it was the finest he’d ever tasted. The beef is Simmental fillet hand cut and prepared table-side. Our waiter asks whether we’d like the foie gras supplement. There’s a fleeting pause, a heartbeat, before Michael replies that “I think we’d all better have that”.

Dexterous chopping follows; skilled hands mix and season the beef while foie gras is roasted. Once delivered to table, the various elements are drenched in a truffle-rich sauce Périgord. It is magnificent. The tender, but marbled fillet is rough cut and liberally seasoned, mustardy and piquant. It couples gently with the foie gras chaser and then all is washed down with the noble decadence of the Périgord sauce.

Main courses read like the death row meal of Fernand Point. Whole leg of milk fed Pyrenean lamb to share, Confit of suckling pig, Lamb Wellington or Poulet de Bresse, (the only chicken Otto will ever serve).

As good as these grand sharing platters look, Michael and I can’t ignore the delicate promise of ris de veau, and David never could resist a pie, so goes for the Anjou pigeon pithiviers, laced with another round of foie gras. The dishes are wonderful – so much technique, complex flavour, and powerful, resonant flavours which only come when sauces are made slowly and from scratch, leading to a distillation of intensity.

We drink Chteau Talbot 1993, a bottle from a rarely-seen vintage that came from a cold Parisian cellar, which is drinking superbly well. This is accompanied by true rarity - Torres Gran Coronas, Mas la Plana 1971 - only the second year of this legendary wine, which put Miguel Torres on the map for many wine lovers. The wine is brooding and ferrous - almost intimidating. Coffee, leather and fragrant woodsmoke circulate a dark fruited core - this is wine-making from another era.

A Tarte Tatin follows excellent cheeses, both of which find ballast in the form of an old Blandy’s Malmsey we find hiding toward the end of the wine list, and at some point there’s an emergency Fernet Branca to keep us on course.

Here in the lull of late afternoon, a panel of light breaks through the façade and glints off the fin de siècle silver presses which have seen so much. In this cocoon, there is a persistent sense that nothing changes, for now at least.